Sacred Cow: Men always want sex

MEN who don't want sex every hour of the day are like trains that won't go through tunnels, rockets that fail to launch and fireworks that don't explode. They are unnatural, or at least suffering a serious malfunction.

The world has long rotated on the belief that men are gagging for sex, while women would rather engage in craft-based hobbies.

Many women saints were beatified after being tortured by lascivious Roman emperors for refusing a good trousering, while Francis of Assisi won his sainthood for designing the first Christmas manger scene.

Mismatched libidos are blamed for marital discord, with sexologist Bettina Arndt suggesting wives take one for the team, even if they have spent the evening cleaning up baby's vomit. Medical science, meanwhile, has devoted millions of dollars to developing little blue pills to help men stand firm when their body is sending quite a different message.

Yet what if the male of the species does not want to thrust his way forward to a new dawn every day?

Stephen Fry went so far as to sing the praises of celibacy, four years into abstinence, in a 1985 magazine column: ''I gave coitus the red card for utilitarian reasons: the displeasure, discomfort and aggravation it caused outweighed any momentary explosions of pleasure, ease or solace. A simple calculus of felicity.''

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Fry might be an extreme example, but his mathematical approach makes sense.

Regular sex takes stamina, tedious small talk (and foreplay) and deep pockets not emptied by a mortgage, alimony or children's school fees.

And sleeping with the same person for more than one week, especially if you're married to them, soon loses its appeal.

Puberty Blues' author, Kathy Lette, says a man's sexual drive is surpassed by women as they age: ''Once a woman has endured the indignity of stretching her birth canal the customary five kilometres, what could possibly ever embarrass her again?''